The "Cardiff Kook" in Encinitas, CA, which is routinely the victim of pranksters, has recently fallen victim to a paper-mâché great white shark. The video feature above from CBS8 shows off the “artistic prank” (and also shows off a girl picking her nose on camera at the beginning).

It would seem that even whales aren’t immune to “Jaws” references in the news. CNN‘s report on a breaching whale that landed on a sailboat near Cape Town harbor features clips from “Jaws.” Additionally, during an interview in the report, the interviewer even asks one of the occupants of the boat if she thought about “Jaws” when the incident happened.

The southern right whale was “definitely badly bruised, but probably did not break anything,” according to a marine scientist quoted in USA Today. The USA Today article also calls into question whether or not the whale was being harassed by the boaters. Legally, sailors are required to stay at least 1,000′ from whales, according to the report.

In other breaking news, CNN also aired a clip this morning of a someone being chased by a moose. There were no “Jaws” references in the moose report, though.

It seems that Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, and Dinoshark have a new contender in the battle for best/worst giant shark movie, with the addition of SyFy’s upcoming Sharktopus. Check out the trailer above for all the cheesy goodness (alright, “goodness” might be a bit of a stretch).

Sharktopus stars Eric Roberts of…err, Eric Roberts fame (hey, he actually did have a role in The Dark Knight) and is produced by B-movie legend Roger Corman (who actually appeared in Dinoshark in an acting capacity).

Future Games of London recently released a shark-themed game for Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. “Hungry Shark,” by the looks of it, does nothing to dispel the myth that sharks are mindless killing machines, but is this something for conservation-minded shark enthusiasts to get bent out of shape over? After all, it’s just a video game created for mindless fun. There are plenty of video games out there that depict humans/aliens/hedgehogs/etc. going around destroying everything in sight. Personally, I won’t be losing any sleep over a game in which a caricature of shark is going around eating everything in the water and the air, especially when the feeding frenzies are accompanied by comical animated text that looks like something out of the old Adam West Batman television series.

There’s a difference between video game companies (as well as advertising companies, movie studios, and other outlets of fictional entertainment) capitalizing on over-the-top shark sensationalism versus educational-based or news media outlets doing so. The difference being that the target audience typically knows they’re getting a heaping slice of fiction with the former. I doubt that playing Hungry Shark will result in somebody believing that a real shark is going to fly out the water, eat a pelican in mid-air, knock a person out of a boat in the process, and then eat the person. Then again, sometimes I give people too much credit.

Microsoft has released a new commercial featuring the rather infamous “Zombie vs Shark” scene from Lucio Fulci’s 1979 film, Zombie (aka Zombi 2), in which a zombie attacks a tiger shark. Despite the fact that the shark in the video is clearly a tiger shark, the Microsoft ad mistakenly refers to the animal as a great white shark.

While the zombie has the upper-hand early on, the tiger shark ends up with the zombie’s upper-hand and upper-arm at the end of the battle. Unlike many other shark attack sequences seen in movies of this era, the shark scene in Fulci’s Zombie was filmed with an actual tiger shark. The zombie was reportedly played by the shark’s trainer. Below is the “Shark vs Zombie” scene in its entirety.

Not having any tv at home, I miss out on commercials sometimes, but this one was brought to my attention by SharkDiver’s Undewater Thrills blog via SouthernFriedScience.com

If one were to take a step back and look at the big picture when it comes to this ad, sharks seem rather harmless, given that the product being advertised is an aid to help people stop smoking. Consider this, adverse health effects from cigarette smoking account for an estimated 443,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to the CDC. The average number of fatal shark attacks for the entire world is around 5-10, depending on whose statistics you look at. So, maybe the guy in the commercial really does have bigger problems to worry about than the great white shark latched on to his arm.

David at SouthernFriedScience.com is critical of the ad due to its negative portrayal of white sharks and notes that it only reinforces the false notion that white sharks are just out there waiting to attack people. Personally, while I can see where David is coming from on some level, I think the ad is relatively harmless and fairly amusing. The shark could have easily been replaced with a dog or just about any other animal with a mouth on it and still have had the same effect. Granted, media featuring sharks tends to focus more on biting, but in the case of this commercial, the over-the-top portrayal and comical nature of the ad make me think that the ad wouldn’t evoke a sense of realism or fear into the minds of the viewers that would result swaying their opinions about sharks one way or another. At the end of the day, I think certain “educational” programs (*cough* Discovery Channel *cough*) are far more culpable for promoting negative stereotypes of sharks than a silly Nicorette commercial.

By the way, the special effects on the great white shark in this commercial beat anything I’ve seen on the big screen, to date. Kudos to the FX guys who did the cg work on this advertisement.

Even following these tips, you probably still won't get eaten by a great white shark.

According to the SF Weekly, Dr. John McCosker of the California Academy of Sciences included a tongue-in-cheek list of suggestions on how to be eaten by a white shark during his April 29th presentation, “Sharks: Why We Love, Fear, and Need Them.”

The overall theme of the presentation was one of shark conservation. However, McCosker apparently attempted to add some comedic elements to the talk with his tips on how to increase one’s odds for being involved in a white shark attack. His tips included…

• making yourself look like a natural food source of the white shark by wearing a wetsuit and floundering a top a short surfboard
• going swimming in areas in known white shark aggregation and feeding areas
• diving for abalone around the Farallon Islands (also a known aggregation spot for large white sharks)

While McCosker’s tips were likely an attempt to keep the audience’s interest piqued. None of them are really a surefire bet to cause a white shark attack, much less result in being “eaten” by a white shark. Even the abalone diver scenario at the Farallones isn’t a guarantee for a shark attack, as can be seen in the video below featuring Ron Elliott’s famous sea urchin diving among the white sharks there.

Hein Mevissen, founder of John Doe Amsterdam, recently posted the “Killing a great white shark with your bare hands” video to his YouTube channel. Much like the somewhat infamous Shark Surfer video, Mevissen’s video was also commercially produced (created for MTV Networks Europe). While the average person would know better than to assume this is anything but a piece of fictional entertainment, it’s probably only a matter of time before YouTube viewers start claiming it’s real.

Regardless, TheDorsalFin.com does not condone the barehanded killing of great white sharks (or any other killing of white sharks), the severing of human arms, or dancing upon dead shark carcasses, unless, of course, it is all done fictionally for mindless amusement and attention.

If I hear from my neighbor’s friend’s cousin’s classmate who was actually there when this really happened, I’ll be sure to let everybody know.

To get to the point, it’s not any more “real” than the last movie you saw at the theater. However, it’s not really a “hoax,” either, or at least, it wasn’t really intended to be. The hoax aspect has come into play more as a result of the responses of YouTube viewers, than as a result of the actual video content.

The original video is one of three viral videos produced by Arnette sunglasses as part of their “Notorious” campaign. In fact, all three videos are still available for viewing on Arnette’s website under the “FOOTAGE” menu item.

The somewhat infamous original Shark Surfer video is actually part of Arnette sunglasses viral marketing.

The video seems to have been originally posted (April, 2008) on YouTube by an Arnette representative, based on the original poster’s screen name of “Notorious415” along with a link to the Arnette sunglasses website in the video information. However, Arnette’s original posting of the video has not drawn nearly as many views as the instance of the same video posted by YouTube user sdalagelli who represents the website illegaladvertising.com which features banned, funny, and controversial commercials and viral campaigns. It’s sdalagelli’s posting of the video, which was posted a few days after the original posting of the video, that has been raking in the viewers with over 2.7 million views at the time of this writing, compared to the one posted by Arnette which has less than 550,000 views on YouTube. Surprisingly, the fact that the video was originally posted by a sunglasses company and later a representative from a website focused on offbeat commercials has not slowed claims that the events in the footage are genuine.

True believers in this video might argue that just because it was created for commercial reasons doesn’t mean that the events in the video aren’t real, which is true. However, it doesn’t take a shark expert to recognize that the surfer in the video is not being pulled by a hooked great white shark, which would certainly not be cruising in a straight path calmly pulling along a human on a surfboard after having just been hooked on a rod and reel. If you’re not convinced check out some of the video footage of Michael Domeier’s team hooking a great white shark. It also doesn’t take a shark expert to realize that a shark with a dorsal fin the size of the one seen in the video would also have a massive caudal fin sticking out of the water, which is nowhere to be seen. In fact, based on the proximity to shore, it seems ridiculous to think that a white shark of any substantial size would be hanging out in water that shallow. I’m not even going to get into the wake left by the “shark” as its towing the surfer or the lack of any level of excitement on the part of the other surfers paddling by. That being said, I’m sure somebody out there has a cousin, who knows a guy who is friends with a dude who was there when it happened and swears it’s true. That same person probably has acres and acres of oceanfront property in Kansas that they would love to sell to you, too.

PS The Notorious video of the guy falling off his motorcycle, only to get back up, run by several other passing motorcycles and climb back on the still moving bike is also not real. Sorry.

PPS The Notorious video of the guy skating on the half-pipe and flying completely over the entire length of the half-pipe from one side to the other is totally real, though. My cousin knows a guy who is friends with a dude who was there when it happened. He said it was awesome…but don’t quote me on that.

SyFy Channel will be unleashing what is sure to be a top-contender for Best Picture at next year’s Academy Awards. That’s right, DINOSHARK debuts tonight at 9pm on SyFy. Based on the preview, it looks like it could possibly hang with both Shark Attack 3: Megalodon and Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus in terms of cheesy effects and horrible acting.

Apparently, Dinoshark has been frozen in a glacier in Antarctica. However, it comes back to life after a piece of the glacier breaks off, allowing Dinoshark to thaw out and swim to a sunny beach in Mexico for Spring Break (consider me jealous of Dinoshark). So basically, you’ve got a cross between a shark and a dinosaur on Spring Break in Mexico. How could this movie possibly go wrong?

Oh, and did I mention that Dinoshark can apparently fly? Admittedly, it looks like Dinoshark doesn’t have quite the hang time that Mega Shark possesses, though.